LeRoy, you are full of beans. You say "unroaded?" Well, Babbitt tried it with his "ways" interpretation of RS 2477 roads on BLM, and Dombeck's USFS actually buried in the appendix of the Roadless Initiative (which started this "hunter and angler" effort by the Greens) a discussion of "unroading" and its potential to qualify millions upon millions (I think 120 million acres) as "roadless" and therefore as eventual wilderness. A complete bustardization and bowdlerization of the original intent of the Wilderness Act of 1964. And Valsdad raises a good point about WSAs. The Act intended, but failed to put in SHALL language, to review, then recommend either to release or designate wilderness. At that time, the USFS was about as great an agency as it could be, and their reviews were balanced. Only the wilderness people and greens (like Sierra Club) thought the recommendations fell short. But the lack of SHALL language and a deadline for Congress has left WSA's that are not appropriate as ransom to have every possible designation (including eventual "unroadings") to happen, someday. Keep the issue open and the funds coming, rather than do the prosaic work of caring for designated wilderness. Finally, the fact is, Montana does a screaming good job of managing state forest lands, a great middle ground between locked up burnfields like the Forest Service and mowed private monocultures (private). We have a sustained yield harvest mandate that limits the top end but still requires production for revenue, managed by people who will spend their careers in Montana and build the kind of long-term knowledge required. Right now, Montana is so far ahead of the other landowner classes in terms of habitat performance, it's sick. Other states, they can be stupid or enlightened, that's THEIR call as well. But federal management via litigation is such a waste of potential.
Up hills slow, Down hills fast Tonnage first and Safety last.
